


render every one his due

by coxcomb



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 07:47:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18734713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coxcomb/pseuds/coxcomb
Summary: “Sir Jaime Lannister,” Brienne says loudly, talking over him. “You are charged with treason. You will come with me to stand trial, or you will die by my sword.”---"just write about sansa killing jaime for treason" - my best friend 2k19





	render every one his due

**Author's Note:**

> takes place directly after jaime and brienne part in season 8 episode 4

There’s a difference, Jaime has discovered, between walking away and letting go. 

He’s done the former so many times over the years. He’s turned his back on Cersei, turned his back on his family, and every time he thinks that this time is the last. He swears to himself he’ll never go back.

But he always goes back.

And this is no exception. 

For a while he’d thought he’d never love anyone but Cersei. Brienne had changed that. 

If it hadn’t been for Cersei, maybe Brienne would have been enough. Maybe they could have been happy together. Maybe he could have been satisfied with her.

But Jaime, after all these years, has not -- _can_ not -- let go. 

Brienne might be enough to satisfy some other man, some lesser man, but she is not Cersei. She is not beautiful, she is not cruel, she is not a force of nature that leaves him powerless. 

They’re planning to kill Cersei, and he might be the only one who can save her. Not from them; from herself. He might be the last person alive who loves Cersei. She needs him. 

He beds Brienne one last time. This is his goodbye to her. He can’t tell her that he’s going. 

She discovers him anyway, sneaking out in the night. She begs him not to go. 

She can’t possibly understand him, or his reasons for going. No one has ever understood Cersei and Jaime. He doesn’t try to explain, not really. He lashes out at her, and hopes it’s enough to make her understand that she should never have trusted him in the first place. He hopes it’s enough to stop her from, gods forbid, following him. Chasing him down. Trying to win him back. 

He sets off into the night alone, his horse’s breath steaming in the cold air. The North is always quiet, besides the whistle of the wind and the occasional howl of a wolf somewhere very far away. The reins jingle when Jaime corrects his horse’s head, and the sound seems to echo around him. 

He hears the sound of approaching hoofbeats very clearly. There’s more than one horse. He tenses in the saddle, wonders whether he should try to run. He glances over his shoulder, kicking his horse into a trot. 

It’s Brienne. Of course it is. 

And she’s got that squire of hers with her. Jaime rolls his eyes. 

He doesn’t slow down, but he doesn’t speed up, either. He waits for them to catch up to him. He tries to figure out how he’s going to get the point across that he’s made up his mind; she can’t come with him, and he’s not going back. 

She overtakes him and stops in front of him, making him halt his own horse in front of her. Podrick hems him in from the back. She's put more clothes on, some armour, though it's buckled haphazardly, done up in a hurry.

“Nothing you can say can make me --” 

“Sir Jaime Lannister,” Brienne says loudly, talking over him. “You are charged with treason. You will come with me to stand trial, or you will die by my sword.” 

Jaime’s mouth drops open. “Brienne,” he says, on the edge of laughing, “you _can’t_ be serious.”

Her jaw is strained with tension, the muscles in her neck rigid. There’s pain, physical and emotional, in the unyielding clench of her teeth. She is not laughing. She’s never been one to tell jokes anyway. 

“I am a knight of this realm. You of all people should know that. I am honourbound to carry out my duty. You have sworn yourself to Lady Sansa and Queen Danaerys. You will face the consequences of deserting the cause and breaking your word.” 

Jaime feels the blood drain from his face. His fingers convulse on the reins, but his extremities have gone numb. The price for treason, for desertion, is death. 

“You can’t,” he says, his throat working. He struggles to find words. “You can’t -- they’ll kill me. Brienne, you--”

“You will come with me and stand trial, or you will die here.” 

She’s bigger than him. There was a time when Jaime could have bested her in battle, when he had two hands, but that was a long time ago. His horse shifts nervously under him, feeding off of his own tension, and he hears Podrick draw his sword behind him. 

“For fuck’s sake, Brienne,” Jaime says. He can’t run away from her. She’s trapped him. “I thought you loved me,” he tries, putting on his best wounded look, searching for the vulnerability in her face. 

“Why would I?” She asks him coldly. 

It’s a bluff. She did love him. He could see it a mile of. Why wouldn’t she love him? Girls do. They always have. Jaime’s handsome. He’s a Lannister. He’s never loved them back, of course, except for Cersei, and only Cersei. But Brienne had loved him -- _she still does, she must,_ he thinks to himself desperately -- and he. He loved her too. As much as he was able to. As much as he could love any woman who wasn’t Cersei. 

“I’ll come back with you, if that’s what you want,” Jaime says. “I’ll stay at Winterfell. But you can’t -- you can’t put me on _trial_ ” 

Jaime’s heard of Littlefinger’s trial. He knows that Sansa would eat him alive. He’s sweating heavily under his armour despite the cold. 

“You have committed treason. You will suffer the consequences of your crime.” 

Jaime glances behind him, sees Podrick just in the corners of his peripheral vision. 

“You can’t do this to me just because you’re angry,” Jaime hisses. He sees Brienne’s eyes widen, sees pink flushing her face. “I’m sorry if I -- hurt your _feelings_. But you can’t have me killed just because --” 

“Enough!” Brienne snaps. She draws her sword and nudges her horse forward. Jaime’s horse tries to retreat, but Podrick is still blocking their way. “Dismount.” 

“No!” Jaime says, gripping his horse’s reins desperately. 

Brienne takes another step forward, bringing herself level with Jaime’s horse, and yanks the reins from his hands. 

For one desperate moment, Jaime pictures himself jumping off his horse and running out into the night. 

They’d catch him in minutes, if not seconds. He stares helplessly into Brienne’s eyes, searching for some hint of mercy. 

“Podrick,” she says. “Tie his hands.” 

* * *

Brienne walks before him, and Podrick walks behind him. He is tied to both their horses. His own horse is hitched to Podrick’s saddle. 

It isn’t a long walk. He hadn’t made it very far before Brienne and Podrick, half-dressed and half-asleep, had caught up with him. Winterfell is still as silent as a keep ever gets when they return, most everyone asleep for the night. Brienne changes that. She wakes a stableboy, but tells him to find someone to wake Sansa before he sees to their horses. 

Within a half hour all of Winterfell is awake once more, peering out into the courtyard where Jaime stands bound. His fingers are turning purple from a mixture of cold and cut-off circulation. 

The keep is still quiet, but now with the hush of nervous anticipation. He catches a glimpse of Sansa making her way toward the hall. She looks impeccable, as if she hadn’t been woken minutes ago. She’s dressed in silks and furs worthy of the throneroom of King’s Landing, and her hair is carefully braided around her head. Maybe she hadn’t been asleep at all. 

She’s trailed by all of the nobles and gentry left in Winterfell. They whisper among themselves and cast glances at him. Most of them at least look sleepy, their hair out of place or their clothes rumpled. No one successfully replicates the cold perfection of Sansa Stark. 

Brienne won’t look at him. He tries to reason with her, tries to plead, but she feigns deafness. 

He still doesn’t entirely believe this is happening to him. He keeps thinking, _She can’t be serious._

After all he’s been through, to be executed in the great hall of Winterfell? After everything he’s faced -- the mad king, a bear, the risen dead -- for it to all end here… 

He sees Bran being wheeled by. The empty stare fixes on him until he’s pushed out of sight; but even then Jaime feels that somehow, Bran is still looking at him. 

He is finally, at last, untied from the horses, only to be pulled forward with a suddenness that makes him stumble. Two nameless guards of Winterfell, men too old to march to battle down South, have taken up position on either side of him. Brienne precedes them with her head held high, throwing open the hall’s doors dramatically. 

Sansa meets her eyes and smiles very faintly. There is something in that smile, but Jaime can’t tell if it’s support and comfort or amusement at some secret joke. 

When Sansa’s eyes turn to him, they fill him cold dread. There’s satisfaction in her gaze, the look of a cat who, after hours of patient hunting, has finally caught the mouse, though her mouth is fixed in a neutral line. 

“My lady,” Brienne says, standing before Sansa with her hands clasped behind her back. “Podrick and I apprehended Sir Jaime on the King’s Road heading South. We believe he was traveling to King’s Landing to rejoin the forces of his sister, the false queen, Cersei Lannister.” 

The crowd around them breaks into excited muttering. 

“Sir Jaime,” Sansa says, slow and calm, like she has all the time in the world. “What say you?” 

“My lady, I had no intention of rejoining Cersei’s forces,” Jaime spits out quickly, hearing the nervousness in his own voice. He tries a smile. “I thought that I could be of more use in the South than here.” 

Sansa stares at him for a drawn-out moment, her gaze betraying nothing of her thoughts. “Yet it was decided by a council of advisors -- which included yourself -- that you would be better off here at Winterfell.” 

She pauses as if she expects him to refute this, but he cannot. He waits for her to continue. 

“Do you think your own authority exceeds that of the council?”

“No, my lady.” 

“Hm,” she says, and she smiles for a moment, an ironic little smile. “Your actions do not reflect your words.” 

That smile makes Jaime sick to his stomach.

“My lady, I know Cersei better than anyone. If anyone can get through to her --”

“We do not wish to get through to her, Sir Jaime. We wish to kill her.” 

“But Danaerys will --” 

Sansa’s eyes flash dangerously as she sits forward. “ _Queen_ Danaerys will do what she sees fit, as is her right as the one true queen of Westeros.” 

Jaime can see from the twist of Sansa’s mouth that she doesn’t believe that. He can also see that she hasn’t told any of the men and women gathered here, other than Brienne, about the death of Danaerys’ dragon. Jaime lashes out in desperation. 

“But with her dragon killed, she’ll sack the city! I’m the only one --” 

The room erupts into murmuring again and Sansa jumps to her feet. She slams her palms down on the table with a noise that silences every voice, including Jaime’s. 

“Sir Jaime.” She says, very quietly and very calmly. “I cannot have a general who does not heed my orders.”

Jaime opens his mouth to protest, but she stops him.

“I cannot have any man living in Winterfell who does not honour his oath to me.” 

“No, please,” Jaime whispers hoarsely. He heard the operative word there, he knows what she means --

“So you must die.” 

Jaime knows that the excited muttering has started up again, but there’s a ringing in his ears. He can hardly hear anything at all. 

“This is the price for treason: execution by blade. It is a price that my father, Ned Stark, paid falsely in King’s Landing. Today justice will be done. The North remembers, Jaime Lannister. And you will be remembered always, Kingslayer, as a traitor.”

The muttering has turned into roars and jeers and fists banged against tables and applause. The room echoes with noise as Sansa gives a silent nod and Jaime is forced to his knees. 

Sansa looks at Brienne. Brienne gives a nod of her own. She hefts her sword.

“No,” Jaime whispers, looking up into her eyes. “No, you can’t.” 

“You don’t want your last words to be begging, Sir Jaime,” Sansa says. Her tone would be better suited to chiding a misbehaving child. Brienne says nothing, staring down at him with her face twisted into a painful grimace. 

“My sister will kill all of you when she hears of this,” Jaime says weakly. “Lannisters always pay their debts.” 

Sansa laughs. “Tyrion told me that she tried to have you both killed,” she says. “Maybe she’ll let me be lord of Riverrun, since I’ve done what Bron of the Blackwater could not.” 

Fear sinks into Jamie’s veins like lead, but he has no time to plead any further, nor even to shake his head. Sansa nods her head, and Brienne swings her blade. She swings true, as she always has.


End file.
